Worm: Of Tinkers and Technowizards
by ChangelingWizard
Summary: The residents of earth Bet know of alternate worlds such as Aleph, but soon a person from beyond their local metaversal cluster is about to introduce them to the wider Megaverse
1. Into the Rift

_Obligatory notice: I do not own __**Rifts**_ _or __**Worm**__, both being owned by __**Palladium games**_ _and __**Wildbow**_ _respectively._

"Speaking" / _Telepathy_

_Enjoy_

* * *

**April 11th, 108 P.A. (Post Apocalypse) / 2394 A.D.**

I am really starting to regret some serious life choices at the moment.

Quick note, my name is Simon, no last name. Like most people who are adopted that were raised by some kind folks who couldn't have children, they have a series of unfortunate events where your second parents are murdered by the Coalition's deadboys who bust in, kill them and claim that you are a threat to every human being and try to kill you also. But thankfully, a Cyberknight intervenes, saves your life, expands your Techno-Wizard abilities, etcetera, etcetera.

Now where in that do I regret my life choices?

Somewhere between the first and second etcetera.

Currently, I am riding on my wing board that looks like the love child between an A-10 Thunderbolt and SR-71 Blackbird, flying away from a very angry flying SAMAS power suit of the Coalition and trying to avoid getting shot. The movies make dodging bullets look easy, but I guess ion bolts are a bit more difficult to dodge, probably because of magnetic fields or whatever. I would like to shoot back at the deadboy shooting at me, but gemstones are not cheap, and I don't want to risk dropping my lucky magnum, and last time I tried to fire my Railgun without prep, my arm nearly got ripped off, also I've never had enough money to buy a cheap laser pistol, and yes, I spent more money on scrap and gemstones to make a magic pistol with 6 rounds rather than a laser pistol that can fire hundreds of rounds without reloading. Why? Because my magnum can eat through a tank with a couple of rounds, unlike a laspistol.

Also, the ammo is cheaper.

**Pang**

Ok, ow, note to self, ion bolts hurt, even if they hit your armored magical trench coat plating.

A rift opens in the distance, it glows bright blue, hiding the location on the other side like any kind of uncontrolled rift. My mind raced, my two forms of self-preservation beginning to argue the pros and cons of traveling through it. On one hand, it would get me out of here right quick, the other, it could lead to a hellscape or something. Meanwhile, I'm flying at nearly the speed of sound away from a flying deadboy who is most likely screaming profanities in his helmet.

Well, for lack of a better alternative, through the mysterious rift of mysteriousness. I really hope I don't regret this.

I push the throttle to the max, gripping the board till my knuckles turn white under the glove, my eyes narrowing behind the visor of my enchanted motorbike helmet. While most Techno-Wizards tend to lean towards a Steampunk, 'I just walked out of the royal treasury' magnet look with gemstones embedded into every surface of their armor or weapons, I went for a more subtle dieselpunk aesthetic and kept the ostentatious jewelry either inside or embedded in my stuff and covered in paint or more armor.

Oh, and I passed through the rift, geronimo I guess.

* * *

**April 11th-ish, 108 P.A.-ish/ 2394 A.D.-ish**

Well, the good news is I'm alive, I'm not in a barren hellscape, and the rift slammed shut right behind me before the SAMAS could charge in blindly and continue the chase.

The bad news is, I'm laying in a pile of trash nursing a wicked headache and a severely bruised right arm, everything else survived just fine. I'm really happy my wing board survived, I would be heartbroken if it didn't survive crashing through a brick wall.

Although the fact that a lot of less than pleased Asian looking men were looking at me and pointing basic looking guns at me.

"Uhh, Nǐ hǎo?" My Chinese is very bad, that being the only word I new, or is it two words? Anyway, when they didn't reply from that I tried again in case I got the country wrong, it's hard to tell at a glance, sue me. "Kon'nichiwa? Yeoboseyo? Throw me a bone here will you?"

"Umm," my eyes turn to a guy by their voice, which is kind of muffled by their own motorcycle helmet, wafts of black smoke emanating from him did not seem healthy, "They don't speak Chinese." I look at his partners in this situation, seeing a blond girl in a domino mask, a stockier female wearing a store-bought dog mask that made me think of the Dog boys of the Coalition and a smaller male that appears to be wearing a caricature of renaissance royal clothing, puffiness and all.

I was about to correct him, but the blond next to him was already on it, "the first one was Chinese, the other two were Japanese and Korean." I gave her a thumbs-up, ignoring my upside-down state when a very large man, most likely the leader of the group stomped over to me, the metal mask mimicking a dragon.

I gave him my left hand, which he hefted me up, and then pinned me to the wall.

"Who the hell are you?" his voice was deep and gravelly, and I mean like his throat was made of unfinished paved road kind of gravelly, it was honestly mildly disconcerting.

"You ok buddy? Do you need a throat lozenge? Your throat sounds a bit-" He slams me back into the wall, jarring me and knocking the wind out of me with an 'oof', I heard one of the grunts snicker. "Ok, no lozenge, you could have just said no."

He growled again and threw me to the floor next to the four kids, whom I've dubbed Smokey, Blondie, Dog Girl, and Princey respectively. "Shoot them, kids first, then the new guy."

"Well, that's rude, at least most people try to get to know me be-," sadly before I could finish my retort a cloud of bugs smashed through the window and began to attack the weaponized goons. My jaw worked in my helmet as I watched them sting and bite the screaming victims, trying to hold back a snicker. I whistled, my wing board whirring to life darted over to me, I jumped aboard and looked back at the children, who were beginning to free themselves. My head flicked to the side as I heard screaming and bones crunching; no, not crunching, _shifting_. My visor illuminated the darkness and revealed the rapidly growing dogs into something more resembling supersized gorehounds. "Huh, neat, see you outside," I say over the violent buzzing sound of the swarm.

A roar emanates from deep inside the swarm, and I suddenly smell burning bugs, a none too pleasant smell.

"Yeah, RUN!" I shout as I rocket out the hole I apparently made in my emergency crash landing that I don't really remember, it's all a blur, which makes sense because I was traveling much faster than any human should be when they need to come to a sudden stop.

Thank you magical armor, you serve me well.

I float above the building, watching the young adults flee from the scene, and the fire emitted from the metal masked burster rose up angrily with another roar, more of the insects were violently immolated, thus is the circle-

**Smack**

I am pulled from my thoughts as I smack the bug that landed on my visor reflexively, blinking rapidly to regain my bearings. I wipe the visor and look at my wrist as another insect rests on my wrist, a ladybug if the books were correct, and it was luck if one was laying on you, I could use some right at the moment. I pull my magnum out of its holster, spinning it like the gunslingers of old around my index finger once before gripping the handle, placing my finger on the trigger and cocking the hammer, an unnecessary thing, based on a desert eagle, it was just for show.

Plus it made me feel cool.

The burster, bursts, through the door of the warehouse, flames pouring off of him in waves, turning almost everything that is flammable within 10 feet of him into ash.

And he's growing scales, that can't be good.

I immediately began to fire at him, telekinetic rounds zipping through the air silently, slamming into him and shattering the slowly forming scales. It was surprising seeing a human tanking the invisible bullets, but I wish I had a camera to capture the look on his face as he was hit by 'imaginary' bullets. I smirked behind my helmet as he launched fireballs past me, a quick squeeze of the grip and flow of mana into the techno-magical weapon of my own creation reloading it. The mysterious swarm attacked the opened wounds ferociously, the source was far more interesting though. A female of around young adult age, curly brown hair, and wearing an impressive full-body insect-inspired costume that reminded me of the Splicers', creepy but all around nice folks. The grip of my right hand tightens reflexively as I remember, but with an angry dragon guy trying to murder everything within arm's reach, and with his increase in size that was a fair amount.

I'm really wishing I got a suit of power armor.

Eh, I'll make one later.

Ok, I need to write that down actually before I start procrastinating.

"Umm, little **Help**!"

Once more I am pulled from my thoughts, at this rate, I will never have a complete train of thought again.

I watch as the entomancer or something along those lines, controlling the swarm to attack the soft bits of the reptilian humanoid, cruel yes but definitely effective. At this rate it would drop him in 5-6 hours, I decided to shorten this time. I took aim with my pistol and fired.

The result made me damn near fall off my wing board with laughter, and just about every male within a mile radius feel the fresh eunuch's pain. Even the young lady flinched with pain as his groin was evaporated into a fine red mist. His knees collapsing in on themselves at damn near the speed of sound, and slamming his face into the concrete, shattering it, a high pitched mewl escaping his lips.

"Hoooo, hoooo, breath…. Breath." I tried to regain control of my diaphragm, snickering as I float down to take a seat. The soft whine of the engines spinning down as it lands on the ground, I unclip from it and sit down, finally wiping off the rest of the bug guts off my helmet.

"Umm, thanks?" I look to the source of the voice, finding the girl from before, looking a little worse for wear but in one piece. I see that her hands are shaking, understandable, I could go do a mile run right about now, or at least till the adrenaline runs out.

"No problem, glad I could help." I stood up, dusting myself off as three sequential thuds happened to my left. I turn to find the children hopping off their gorehound steeds, Blondie is staring at me like I have 3 heads.

I blinked to myself and checked my shoulders, finding that I haven't become a Cerberus I looked back at her and placed my hands in the 'what' formation with an additional shrug to drive the question home.

"Who are you?" She asks, staring intently at me within my personal space bubble, through her purple mask her eyes shifting constantly across me, honesty being kinda creepy. I lifted my hand and placed my finger on her forehead, gently pushing her away from me, getting a snicker from Princey and the Bug Girl. Doggirl just stares in silent observation, while Smokey the biker shaking his head as he approaches me.

"Ignore her," He speaks! And in a deep, weirdly resonating voice, honestly preferable compared to the road gravel voice of metal face, he looks at both me and entomancer, "she's Tattletale, that's Bitch, Regent, and I'm Grue." Regent? I preferred Princey over Regent, but what are you going to do.

The girl snickers and softly speaks: "You have been eaten by a Grue." That elicits groans from the other members of the group, I simply stand silent, blinking behind my helmet, missing the joke.

"So, what are your guys' names?" Regent asks, spinning his scepter, sounding almost like a borg without the intimidating voice modulator. The girl next to me didn't immediately respond, and by now it was fairly clear that these people were not using their real names, but why was still in question. The Bug Girl was quiet, fiddling her thumbs, while I tapped the chin of my helmet.

"She doesn't have one yet, and he doesn't need one." Tattletale states, I look back at her and blink, shrugging again.

"Sorry, I'm from out of town, so I have no idea what you're talking about." This sparked a lot of confused glances, except the girl with the purple mask, who nodded sagely, grinning like a fox. "Can someone tell me what the joke is, that grin is beginning to creep me out."

"Yeah," Grue shakes his head, "it's her thing, she knows things, and likes to be the smartest person in the room."

"That's because I am." Tattletale remarks smugly.

"Great, now," I clap my hands, pressing them together and pointing them down at the maximum angle my wrists can flex, "can I please know where the hell I am? Because I am severely lost and in dire need of a good meal." But before I can have my questions answered, a deep rumble of an engine began to raise as something either very big or very fast was approaching quickly. And left with even more questions as the group rides off on their gorehounds, picking up the possible names of the dogs as 'Julius', 'Brutus' and 'Angelica'. "Dammit…" I turn to the girl next to me, who seems to be either on the verge of a panic attack, excitement, or needing to go to the bathroom, the mask made it hard to tell.

After an overly long minute, the noise finally revealed its source as a motorcycle, seeming to be heavily modified, and a man wearing blue armor with silver highlights, wielding a high tech halberd, one thing bothering me is his chin and beard open to the air. Halbeard, tentative name, seemed to fit, walks up to us, his helmet flicking over to the unconscious form of the dragon man. He spun the halberd, pressing a near-invisible trigger that launches a dart into the dragon's neck, most likely a tranquilizer.

"You did this?" He asks either me or bug girl, probably both.

"Yep," I state simply, pointing at bug girl and tilting my head in her direction, "She helped as well, the big guy may have more than a little venom in him, you may need to take care of that," I state flatly, the girl looks at me, then back to Halbeard, who nodded with a grunt in reply.

"Do you need a hospital?" He asks, to which both of us to shake our heads, the dragon-man didn't get close enough to damage either me or my partner in a beatdown, and the ion bolt from earlier mostly just leaving a bruise. From under the helmet, Halbeard seemed to have a very subtle look of surprise, it was easy to miss if you didn't have a magic helmet that increased your vision.

"I'm just as surprised as you are." The girl replies in turn to the man.

"Not really that surprising, I had the range on the guy, as he appeared to be a mid-range to close combat fighter, could probably hit hard if I was in arm's reach, but beyond that, he was pretty easy to take down." I shrug and look at his body, he appeared to shrink back down to human size, and the scales fading, neat. When I turned back to them, both of the costumed people were staring at me like I was insane. "What?" I ask flatly.

* * *

The girl left after a quiet conversation with the man she identified as Armsmaster, didn't tell me anything about this world, and I heard a few words being repeated that seemed to be important, the next upgrade in mind after the power armor is to make my helmet help me hear better. I was sitting on my wing board as the men and women known as the Parahuman Response Team or PRT, I watched them as they sprayed an off white foam onto the body who belongs to Lung, cute name.

Quick notes: This world, called Earth Bet, they know of another Earth called Alph, so dimensional things weren't out of the question here, has superheroes who are called Parahumans, no magic, all 'science', even a group who called themselves 'magic-users' are actually parahumans, which was kind of depressing, but very informative. There is some magic in this world, nowhere near as much as earth back home, but definitely higher than you would expect, and no one, barring myself, could tap into the mana. The PRT is bugging me about joining the Protectorate, the world's superhero group/groups, the American ones at least.

Oh, yes, another thing, the date was still April 18th, but I was several hundred years into the past in 2011, fun.

Once more I am jarred out of my train of thought as someone coughs as nonchalantly as possible, I turn to them.

"Yes?" I ask simply, slowly standing up, and looking at one of the officers through my helmet. Female, average height, helmet hid her features well enough, unlike Halbeard.

"Did you really take down Lung?" Her tone was suspicious, mixed with disbelief, and I nodded.

"Had some help, but shooting for the tender spots usually works." She snickers almost imperceptibly but quickly catches herself. I smile under my helmet, chuckling and looking at my wrist, where a watch rests, it is wirelessly connected to the local Mass Information Transference Network of this world and displays the local time, it isn't the most glorious of my gadgets, but it does its job wonderfully. "Anyway, do you need me for anything else, or can I go?" She shakes her head.

"Sorry, but the PRT recommends that all new parahumans register." I internally sigh, technically I'm not a parahuman, I'm a Technowizard, although people here are quick to label me a tinker, the local approximations. "Do you have a name?"

A name? Yes. Cape Name? No. Nicknames? None that are nice to say in polite company. Well, I don't know if the words are slurs here but better safe than sorry. I guess I can go with 'Technowizard' but that feels like a cop-out.

"No, but I'll tell you it when I get one, now if you'll excuse me." I step onto my wing board, with a thought it rises into the air and I take off into the night.


	2. Getting Comfy

**Obligatory notice: I do not own Rifts or Worm, both being owned by Palladium games and Wildbow respectively.**

**"Speaking" / _Telepathy_**

**Enjoy**

* * *

_**April 15th, 2011, Brockton Bay**_

Can I just say I really hate the idea of time travel? It's never consistent, whether or not it is a good idea is never consistent, and when time travel affects the protagonist is completely arbitrary.

The good news is I'm not dealing with time-travel.

While the history of back home is murky at best, I'm pretty sure there was no mention of a golden man with other superheroes and nigh-unkillable monsters called Endbringers following him. You would think that would leave a mark on history, but from what I saw at home besides Atlantis being a bit possessive of the ocean, no Leviathan, no Simurg or Behemoth. Also this place, Brockton Bay especially, has gone- pardon my french- to hell. The market is shot, society's a mess, and supervillains own nearly the entire town despite the local government and superhero group saying otherwise.

It almost feels like home honestly.

Currently, I'm lodged inside an abandoned warehouse in the middle of an empty block, every now and then some drugged up mini-Juicers wander in thinking their hot stuff but a few potshots at them is enough to send them scurrying back to their ratholes. It almost feels like being in the wasteland still, barring the lights, the not drugged up people, and the missing leylights. It's almost eerie to see stars in the sky instead of leylights. Also, I'm apparently switching to a more diurnal clock instead of my normal nocturnal one, maybe it's the fact that I don't have to run during the night all the time to flee from people trying to kill me. Yet.

I was in the middle of one of my adjusting naps when someone knocked on the warehouse door. Most people would panic, I just groaned, slammed my helmet onto my head, picked up my pistol, and staggered to the door.

"Could have at least waited for my coffee to finish…" I had fixed the thing up after making a deal with a merchant guy who in trade asked if I could fix his car. Wasn't that difficult either, somebody tried to tie one too many turbochargers into the engine, if it had actually worked the damned thing would have either gone like a bat out of hell or blown up. He gave me the coffee machine and a couple of hundred bucks in exchange, nice guy.

Also, this meant every credit in my pockets was worth merde but that's the way fate hates your guts somedays, like an ex-girlfriend.

I opened the door to find, surprisingly, a group of non-high off their gourd humans.

"Sup," I asked nonchalantly, sliding the pistol back into its holster as I rubbed the back of my neck. "Is there something I can do for you?" They looked somewhat confused, but the lead guy had a smirk grow on his face. I've seen that kind of smirk before, the palm of my hand resting on the butt of my gun.

"Yes, well, we are here to represent our benefactor that wishes to hire you for your services." He says smoothly, snake oil salesman type. "If you want he can pay you upfront." My eyes narrowed behind my helmet, something about the group was bugging me, they were bald like Psi-stalkers, and they wore clothes that almost looked like uniforms. I grimaced, crossing my arms, my finger tapping my bicep, before holding it in the air.

"Lemme meet him, then we can see," I say flatly. They all seem pensive at the prospect, and the leader of the pack's smile faltered. Eventually, he puts on a brave face and nods, reaching out to take my hand, but I close the door instead.

I hopped back to my stuff and got to packing, I knew shooting at those druggies would be a bad idea but I did not want their piss on my temporary property. I slide bits and pieces of things into my traveling pack, and take the travel mug out of the coffee machine I modified to run off of a mana battery, and a hell of a lot more compact. I hefted up my Railgun, based on the Glitterboy shoulder-mounted Boomgun design, but smaller, no ammo pack thanks to launching pure telekinetic force instead of tungsten sabots, also the barrel was forked, and would faintly glow blue when fully charged and firing. I stepped onto my wingboard and hovered upwards, pulling out a very simple device, basically an automatic evidence remover, destroying any evidence in an area with a simple cast of fire globe then snuffing out the flame with a frost burst.

I zipped out of the skylight/bolthole and activated my cloaking field, fading from the sight of anyone and anything short of someone with true sight, including cutting edge detection equipment. The engine hummed as it flew through the skies of Brockton Bay, it was something to see a living town, people milling about without a care in the world, cars humming about the streets, and nothing exploding every ten-

**BOOM**

Damnit, spoke too soon.

I turned towards the explosion and soared over, seeing if I could be of help. Imagine my surprise when I find, instead of a smoking, burning, or steaming crater, I find a 25m radius sphere of frosted ground. I float down, finding ice sculptures of- no, holy shit those are actual people completely encased in ice. And despite popular media saying otherwise, those people are definitely already dead, either due to ice crystals inside of their cells rupturing, or suffocation, or just plain thermal shock. Another thing is the temperature needed to create this amount of ice in such a short amount of time being several degrees below zero kelvin, and as most people don't know, that is freaking impossible.

I sigh, pulling up from the frozen graveyard and scanning the city of Brockton Bay, more explosions rumbling in the air, and only a few of them were conventional explosives, I could see some white dots that pulled in the collapsing buildings before popping out of existence, more spheres of absolute zero bullshit, and where spheres of slightly darker light. I soar over the panicking city, lifting up my pistol I fire a handful rounds at some of the armed combatants, scaring them off as fist-sized holes appear violently at their feet. I zipped away and hovered over the strangely dark one, a sense of dread filling my stomach as I saw time flowing much slower than it should, people frozen in a moment of sheer terror.

"Good, god…" I mumbled aloud. I pull out a coin and slip it into the bubble, it stops halfway on the surface, turning into the darker coloration. Sliding on one of my welder gloves, I pull on it, feeling like it's attached to a solid steel wall. Before a bolt of purple lightning bolt of pure magic zaps the crap out of me. "OWFUCK!" I flick the now burning glove away, green flames eagerly consuming the supposedly insulated leather, well, insulated against normal electricity. I hear a clink as I find the coin, now cut in half, on the ground, the other half now buried in a brick wall, inside the bubble. "Ok, good to know, magic, and whatever the hell this is, don't mix," I grumble to myself.

I hear the rumble of a familiar motorcycle engine, I turn to find Halbeard braking next to me, efficient, swift, and honestly kinda cool. He steps off his custom bike and it automatically sets down its kickstand and spins his halberd as he studies the sphere behind me, then at me.

"Did you cause this?" He asks flatly.

"Nope," I reply equally flat.

"Are you here to help?"

"Sure."

"Good." He pulls out something from his pocket and hands it to me, I take it and look at it, appearing to be a cell phone. I press a button on the side, turning it on as the LCD screen and showing the symbol of the Protectorate as it boots up. I tap in a password and look at the rolling Datafeed. "A Tinker named Bakuda is the cause of this," I nod and flick over to her file.

**Bakuda: Female / Tinker: Bomb Specialization / Affiliation: Villain (ABB*)**

I raise an eyebrow and tap the link to this ABB as Halbeard studies the Timedilated sphere of doom.

[QUOTE]Azn Bad Boys: Location: Brockton Bay / Affiliation: Gang / Notable Members: Lung, Oni Lee, Bakuda / Known Parahumans: Lung, Oni Lee, Bakuda[/QUOTE]

"Oh great him again, and he's got friends, Yipee." I groan as I look at Armsmaster who is returning to his bike as he talks to a communicator on his helmet. "Whatcha got?"

"The sphere is Bakuda's work, it scans similar to Clockblocker's power," Clockblocker? Really? That guy sounds like a barrel of laughs, or a headache and a half, "furthermore it appears that the rest of the ABB is nearing Lung's transport to the Birdcage." That's not good. "We would be grateful for your aid." We? Probably talking about the rest of the Protectorate.

"Sure, I don't want that guy loose again and after my ass." I show him the phone to give it back, he raises his hand as he revs his motor.

"Keep it! Follow me!" I nod as I slip the phone into one of my many deep pockets and dash back to my Wingboard, it's engine roaring to life as he screams down the street with me hot on his tail. I scan the hectic streets below, Halbeard using his halberd almost like a scalpel as he drives past many of the ABB members and swiftly disarming them and either smacking them in the face or shooting them with a sleep dart. I use my pistol, pulling back the full power of the rounds to instead of turning the people I shoot into fine pink mist, just sends them flying into walls, couple bruises, and maybe their ribs are cracked but nothing too bad. Eventually, we find a PRT transport van under siege by ABB members, some wearing gang colors, others have the faces of conscripts, and I've seen plenty of conscripts. There also appeared to be a man in a tall black bodysuit and demonic mask, a bandolier wrapped around his chest was loaded with grenades and knives, otherwise, he could be described as 10 pounds of nope in a 5-pound bag.

"He seems friendly." Halbeard glances at me, and I can see the barest mentions of a smirk appear at the corners of his mouth, but it quickly fades as he spins his halberd in position, sending his motorcycle off.

"Oni Lee, Mover, teleporter, leaves clones that disintegrate and can explode those grenades," Halbeard states as he engages in taking down the mooks.

"Sounds like as pain in the ass," I shout as I fire at the masked guy, his head flicking to the side before he poofs into a cloud of ash. I narrow my eyes as I trace his line of sight, seeing another cloud of ash. "Hmm.." I hear a click behind me and I shoot forward, spinning around to catch bright light of a flashbang, my helmet's build in visor blocking the full light and sound of the explosive. "Yep, pain in the ass."

"Be aware that-"

"He uses his ash clones as suicide bombers, got it."

"Oni could also have more esoteric explosives from Bakuda." More time stopping bombs, oh hell no.

"How much trouble would I be if I punched a hole through him?" I hear another click and backhand the grenade and fire it higher into the sky as it detonates into a blue fireball. "I mean, he really sounds like more of a hassle than he's worth!" I receive silence for a few moments as I continue to fight the asshole and occasionally firing potshots at the crowd to keep the dragon in a box. The horde of people thinned massively, leaving the most brainwashed or dumbest fo the bunch to continue trying to swarm rush the van.

Then a swarm of bugs splashed into them.

My helmet hid my smile as I turned to find Buggirl, now named Skitter a not bad name in my opinion. Gorehound Girl aka Hellhound aka Bitch, her choice, and no one else calls her that. And another person wearing a black bodysuit emblazoned with red stars. I give them a small salute as the doors explode outwards, Lung apparently getting attacked by some moron in the van and got his engine revving. He turns to Skitter, then me, he bares his teeth, the flames that swirl around him in a demonic halo grow.

"Ooo," He gravels out, seriously dude get a damned lozenge for that throat cancer.

"Hi, long time no see, now get back in the van for your time out before I make you a eunich again." Much to the surprise that got everyone, barring Lung, me, and the gorehounds, to dead quiet. I and the dragon knockoff began our staredown, the city around us crackling softly like wood in a fireplace. Something in the back of my mind ticks, my pistol flicking out behind me on pure reflex and popping a shot. A sharp crack is heard, then after a moment, a splat, I look down to find Oni Lee, minus his head, and everything else now a sack of broken bones poking out of his corpse like a poop with knives sticking out of it. "Whoops," I say in monotone. Never really got that answer from Halbeard. I turn to Lung, who is unaffected by his minion dying. "So, van or more medical surgery with a gun?" I keep my pistol at the ready, after a moment Halbeard approaches, I float down tracking Lung, he glances at the corpse, he seems disapproving but understanding.

"I think we can classify that under self-defense," kind of obvious but maybe it's a local law thing. I give him a nod, and all of us glare at the supervillain.

The somewhat awesome moment is ruined by all of us being thrown by an explosion.

"Sonovabitch!" I spin my wingboard back into proper orientation, and I see a small woman wearing a gas mask and wielding a grenade launcher while she charges faux-draco, most likely Bakuda. After a moment of internal conflict, I raise my hand cannon at the bomber and ready to punch a neat hole in her head.

"Wait!" I turn to find Tattletale riding on a gorehound with Grue, "She has a deadman's switch on her!" I growl and fire a round into Lung's back, sending him slamming onto Bakuda, who screams and aims her launcher at me. In return I show her my BFG, screw shoulder pains if I want to turn her into red mist I godsdamed will!

"Surrender now Bakubitch! You're outnumbered and outgunned!" I shout as my TK Railgun spins to life, the ominous hum growing and silencing the crowd around me, my eyes flick over to Lung, his body slowly regenerating.

"You won't kill me! You don't have the guts!" She cackles madly, aiming her Grenade launcher at me. I can practically hear her manic grin on her face, her superiority complex dripping from her voice. Every nerve in my hand eager to squeeze the trigger to wipe that smug look off her face.

I float down and walk off my wingboard, she keeps her grenade launcher aimed at me, but I see the smallest of tremors in her hand as I shove the barrel of my railgun against her head, and I whisper. "Try me."

I watch as her eyes flicking side to side, her breathing accelerating, and a smirk grows under my helmet. "Lemme guess, control glasses with a trigger device somewhere on you?" She glares at me through her glasses, but a smile tries to rise beneath it. Let's put a stop to that. "I'm also guessing you're using a signal repeater that when it stops all the bombs you've most likely laid across the city and your conscripts heads go boom all at once?" The smirk falters, "Thought so, good thing I'm used to running into suicide bombers, radio triggered deadman switches ain't anything new to me and I happen to have s signal repeater that keeps things on 'All Clear'," I press the barrel harder against her head, "so drop the gun and play nice."


End file.
